Stay Informed

Daniel Jenky

Earlier this month we posted a segment of Bishop Daniel Jenky’s Homily comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, arguing that the President is “following a similar path” as the two dictators:

Jenky has faced criticisms from groups including the Anti-Defamation League and Faithful America, which organized a petition asking Jenky to apologize. Over eighty faculty members of the University of Notre Dame, where Jenky serves as a member of its Board of Fellows, in a letter said that they found it “profoundly offensive” to “compare the president’s actions with those whose genocidal policies murdered tens of millions of people,” asserting that “it would be in the best interest of Notre Dame if Jenky resigned from the University’s Board of Fellows if he is unwilling to renounce loudly and publicly this destructive analogy.”

Unsurprisingly, Operation Rescue founder and “presidential candidate” Randall Terry is rushing to Jenky’s defense with a planned press conference at Notre Dame and a letter demanding the faculty members protesting Jenky to resign or repent before they face God’s judgment:

Dear esteemed faculty of Notre Dame,

Have you actually read Bishop Jenky's homily that you so forcefully condemn?

There was not one word in his homily - not one syllable - that was not true. With pathos and charity, he upheld the teachings of the Catholic Church, defended human life and liberty, and rightly rebuked the President for his actions.

You stated that Bishop Jenky showed an "ignorance of history, [and an] insensitivity to victims of genocide." It is you who show a profound ignorance of the history; it is you who show a calloused insensitivity to the victims of the abortion holocaust...the millions of babies who are being murdered under Obama's policies, whose mangled bodies are thrown in sewers and landfills.

Obama is clearly at war with the Catholic Church's teachings on human life and liberty; he is clearly promoting the genocide of millions of babies; and he is clearly seeking to coerce the Church to participate in his crimes against humanity.

Have you no shame? You clearly have little honor, and even less regard for innocent human life. There was not one word - not one syllable - in your letter that condemned or confronted the atrocities being committed by Obama. By your words and your omissions, you show your own treachery against innocent human life, and the teachings of the Church. You have betrayed Jesus Christ, Mother Church, and the babies who are being slaughtered.

The souls of the innocent - who have been dispatched into eternity under Obama's evils - will testify against you.

We call on you to repent, or to at least have the decency to resign from a University that bears the Holy Name of the Mother of God.

Yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League told the Chicago Tribune that his comments were “completely over the top”:

A homily delivered Sunday by Peoria's Roman Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky has angered the Anti-Defamation League, a watchdog for anti-Semitism.

…

On Wednesday, Lonnie Nasatir, the regional director of Chicago's Anti-Defamation League, demanded an apology from Jenky, calling his remarks "outrageous, offensive and completely over the top."

"Clearly, Bishop Jenky needs a history lesson," Nasatir said.

"There are few, if any, parallels in history to the religious intolerance and anti-Semitism fostered in society by Stalin, and especially Hitler, who under his regime perpetuated the open persecution and ultimate genocide of Jews, Catholics and many other minorities."

Faithful America is also calling for an apology, writing members that “this kind of hateful and incendiary rhetoric is inappropriate coming from anyone”:

As pastors and teachers, Catholic bishops are supposed to lead their flock in sharing the love of God with our neighbors. So why did a Catholic bishop just use his Sunday homily to compare President Obama to Hitler and Stalin?

Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Illinois, launched a vicious tirade against politicians who disagree with the bishops' views on health care reform, culminating in the outrageous claim that "Barack Obama seems intent on following a similar path" to Hitler and Stalin, who "would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open."

This kind of hateful and incendiary rhetoric is inappropriate coming from anyone -- but it's simply outrageous coming from a religious leader in a position of public trust. Bishop Jenky needs to hear immediately that reasonable people of faith are appalled by his remarks. [emphasis theirs]

There's no excuse for comparing the President of the United States to Hitler and Stalin. Please offer an immediate apology for your offensive remarks and refrain from using such hateful rhetoric in the future.

For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.

The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism. And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.

The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy especially on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and be ready to fight to defend our faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.

In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.

Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like those first disciples before the Resurrection locked together in the Upper Room.

In the late 19th century, Bismark waged his “Kulturkamf,” a culture war against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany. Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, President Obama – with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

Now things have come to such a pass in our beloved country that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.